


when you love someone

by heavenlyshadows



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Grandpa Tony Stark, Michelle Jones Is a Good Bro, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Morgan Stark is a good bro, Single Parent Peter Parker, Teen Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:33:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenlyshadows/pseuds/heavenlyshadows
Summary: Michelle knew she was making a mistake the second she set foot on Peter’s doorstep.They’d been broken up for almost eight years, and in that time, Peter had been married, had a son, and gotten divorced. She’d been living on the other side of the country. There was no version of reality where what she was doing right now was a good idea, but she had to see him.So she raised her fist and knocked.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 110





	when you love someone

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song When You Love Someone by James TW

Michelle knew she was making a mistake the second she set foot on Peter’s doorstep. 

They’d been broken up for almost eight years, and in that time, Peter had been married, had a son, and gotten divorced. She’d been living on the other side of the country. There was no version of reality where what she was doing right now was a good idea, but she had to see him.

So she raised her fist and knocked.

There was a pause before a very frazzled-looking Peter Parker opened the door. There were more lines in his face, and his eyes, still as bright as ever, had lost much of their youthful optimism. His obnoxiously long hair hung into his eyes over a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Since taking over as CEO of Stark Industries, his face had been plastered on the front of every magazine in the country, so she knew he was different than her Peter, but seeing it up close was strange. 

“MJ,” he blinked in confusion. “W-what, are you doing here?” 

She snorted. It was comforting that there were things about Peter that hadn’t changed.

“Nice to see you too, loser.” 

“N-no, that’s not what-”

“I’m messing with you.” she stopped him quickly. “You didn’t come to the decathlon reunion, so I wanted to check and make sure you were still alive.”

“Yeah,” he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “I was thinking about going, but then Ned texted and said the entire decathlon team was going to be there, and I think I got enough of Flash’s shit in high school.” 

Only then did he seem to realize she was still standing outside, and he stepped out of the way to let her in. The house was nice, tucked in the back of a small neighborhood with a big backyard and a pool. It was sparsely decorated, with a few pictures of Peter and his son or Tony and his family hanging on the walls. Besides his eyes, which were a bright slate gray, Peter’s son, Ben, was the spitting image of him. Everything was a neutral color; black couch, wood table, and tv stand, white carpet. Even the houseplant by the window was a wilted shade of brown. MJ’s hopes for Peter’s superhero abilities were slim if he couldn’t even keep a plant alive. 

“I just got back from dropping Ben off at Tony’s, so,” he moseyed through the house, picking miscellaneous toys up off the floor. “We have the whole place to ourselves.” 

“I can go if you- I don’t want to ruin your kid-free night.” 

“No, no, it’s ok,” he stopped her before she could make it to the door. “I actually wouldn’t mind the company, and besides, you can help me finish this.” He reached into the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of liquor. The label read Aviation Gin, and it didn’t look like he had taken more than a few sips from it. 

“I didn’t know you drank,” she said. 

“I don’t, but it was a gift, so I felt bad getting rid of it.” he sat down next to her at the dining room table, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig before passing it to her. If it were anyone else, she would have told them to grab a glass, but she and Peter were sharing germs years before now, so she doesn’t see the point as she takes it and drinks. It’s disgusting, and it burns on its way down her throat, but it helps soothe her nerves. 

“A gift from who?” 

“Wade Wilson.” 

MJ nearly spit out her drink. “You know Wade Wilson?” 

“Not really,” he said. “He sent it to me cause I saved his wife from getting mugged. Said, “Ryan Reynolds thanks me.”

“Ryan Reynolds?” 

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a weird guy.”

MJ looked from him to the bottle in her hand. 

_ Yeah. Weird.  _

“So, how have you been?” he asks.

“Honestly,” she takes a long swig before she answers. “Not great.” 

He frowns but doesn’t say anything. That was the great thing about Peter; he never pushed or demanded an explanation. He always left it up to her.

“My dad has lung cancer. They’re trying to treat it but,” she takes another drink. “At this point, there isn’t a whole lot they can do.”

Peter’s hand, which was in the process of reaching for the gin, froze in midair. “Shit. I’m sorry, Em. Your dad’s a good guy. I always liked him.” 

She pushed down the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach. Peter was the only one who ever called her that. “He loved you. He’s still mad about losing that bet, by the way.” 

When they were dating, Peter used to come over every Sunday during football season. “So I don’t have to suffer alone.” Michelle had said. Peter knew absolutely nothing about it, but he’d made an offhand comment about the next play during one of the games, and Mr. Jones bet him a hundred dollars that it wouldn’t happen. Of course, it did, and to this day, he was still bitter. 

Peter snorted. “Jones’ can hold grudges like no other.”

It wasn’t a dig at her, but she reached over and cuffed him over the back of the head anyway. 

“If you need anything,” he trailed off, face serious and sincere in the way only Peter could be, and Michelle nodded, suddenly desperate to change the subject.

“Speaking of ‘how have you been?’,” she leaned forward in her seat. “I heard about you and Gwen.” 

Peter’s expression hardened, his lips pressed into a thin line.

It had been years since she had talked to Peter, really talked to him, instead of the ‘how are yous’ and Happy Holidays texts she sent to everyone from high school, so she hadn’t heard about Peter’s divorce till she asked Ned about him at the reunion. 

“You didn’t hear Jones?” Flash asked, reaching across their table for a beer. “Gwen was sleeping around behind his back, and now she’s in Brazil or some shit with her boyfriend. Hasn’t talked to him or the kid since the divorce papers got served.” 

He would have been reveling in this in high school, but now he sounded pissed. It was hard for her to remember sometimes that she and Peter weren’t the only ones who changed. 

“You want to talk about it?” she asked Peter. 

He sighed and took the gin back from her, practically chugging it. She was about to yell at him for giving himself alcohol poisoning when she remembered that with his metabolism, even drinking the entire bottle probably wouldn’t get him drunk.

At least not drunk enough for this conversation.

“There’s isn’t really anything to talk about,” he said. “Gwen cheated, we fought about it, and then she left. I don’t know; maybe it would have happened anyway.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I was ready to move on with life, and she wanted to stay in the party phase, like when we were in college. We were together for years before we got married, and even then, it was like she only did because we had Ben and her parents thought we should.” He huffed, taking another swig. “And we were always fighting about something. Mostly Spider-Man. She thought I cared too much about lives that aren’t mine.” 

“That’s not a bad thing,” MJ laced her fingers through his. “You’ve got such a big heart, Peter. People look up to you. You inspire them because of this. That’s important.” 

She reached over and laid her palm flat on his chest, right over his heart. It beat faster than a normal human being, a steady  _ thrumthrumthrumthrumthrum _ under her fingertips.

“Yeah,” he squeezed her hand. “I just feel bad for Ben, you know? He hasn’t talked to her in almost a year, and I-”

“That was Gwen’s choice. There was nothing you could’ve done to change it.” 

“But if I hadn’t told her to leave-” he started.

“You told your cheating wife to get out of the house. You didn’t tell Ben’s mother to get out of his life.” 

It didn’t look like he believed her, but he didn’t argue. 

They were quiet after that. The more she drank, the more warmth she could feel pooling in her stomach. She understood why they called it liquid courage. Every question that had run through her head in the last eight years came spilling out of her mouth before she could stop it. 

“Why didn’t you tell me? About Gwen.” 

His eyes snapped up to hers. “What?” 

“You didn’t tell me you guys split. You haven’t told me much of anything in the last couple of years. Why?” 

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t come to the wedding, and we didn’t talk much after you went to L.A, so honestly, I thought you were done with me.”

“Peter, we were together for almost ten years. It’s one thing to be friends after that, but it’s something else entirely to watch you marry someone else. I thought, for a long time, it was going to be us.” 

Peter stared at her, eyes wide, confused, and frustrated, almost a decade of pain and unanswered questions swimming behind them. “Then why did you break up with me?” 

“Because when I told you about the job in L.A, you told me to go.” 

“Because I thought that’s what you wanted. The nonprofit offered you your dream job, and I didn’t want you to think you were making a mistake or that I was holding you back. I didn’t think we were going to break up when you left.”

“Long-distance relationships don’t work,” MJ snapped.

“We could have made it work. I was willing to make it work, and you didn’t even want to try-” 

“Peter, I broke up with you because I didn’t want to hurt you anymore, not because I stopped loving you.” 

She froze, her mouth hanging open like a fish. She hadn’t meant to say it. He’d only been divorced for a year, for Christ’s sake. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel like he owed her something because she couldn’t let go. Because them splitting up had been her fault. She’d done that stupid thing where girls want their boyfriends to guess what they want instead of telling them because she thought Peter would just know after ten years together. 

She should have known him better. She should have known he wouldn’t be that selfish.

It was her dream job, and she’d told him a thousand times before that she wouldn’t change her life for a guy. 

She’d trapped him in a box. He wouldn’t ask her to stay, and he wouldn’t offer to go. His whole life was in New York. Tony, Pepper, May, Morgan. Spider-Man and Stark Industries. 

So much was possible for him without her laying claim to him from across the country. He could share his life with someone who could be present and not only exist in half of it. He didn’t deserve to be loved in half measures. So she ended it. She put her hood up and boarded her plane. She let him go.

But she never stopped loving him.

Not even three years later, when Betty told her Peter was in love with someone else.

Or after that, when they got married and had a baby.

She hadn’t been in a relationship since Peter. There were one-night stands and dinner dates with guys from work, but it never went further than that. Even trying would be cruel because she would never feel for them what she had for Peter.

“I never stopped loving you.” 

She doesn’t think about it when she kisses him. She leans across the table and presses her mouth to his, and for a moment, she’s afraid he’s going to push her away. He freezes, but eventually, his body melts, and he kisses her back, his hands finding their way into her hair. The strands tickle the back of her neck as she deepens the kiss. Her hands wander, drifting under the hem of his shirt and over his abs. She can feel the steady  _ thrumthrumthrumthrum  _ of his heart under her fingers, but she thinks it's racing for a different reason this time. 

His kisses dip to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. It’s all teeth and tongue against her skin, and when he sucks at a spot on her neck he knows she likes, and she gasps, he smirks. 

_ What an ass _

He pushes her jacket from her shoulders and moves to pull off her shirt but stops, eyes questioning. Instead of responding, she reaches down and pulls it over her head, dropping it next to her jacket and kicking both articles of clothing into the kitchen. “MJ,” Peter murmurs against her neck. 

“Shut up,” she grabs for the hair at the back of his neck and pulls him back towards her, their teeth and tongues clashing. 

This is probably a mistake. It’s definitely a mistake, and the logical part of Michelle’s brain is screaming at her to stop, but as Peter takes her hand and pulls her towards his bedroom, the rest of her brain decides she doesn’t care. 

-

MJ was gone when Peter woke up in the morning, a note about having to take care of something scribbled on the notepad on the fridge. He sighed, crumpling it and throwing it in the trash before pulling on a hoodie and yesterday’s jeans and heading to Tony’s to pick up Ben. 

He’s exhausted, and he knows Pepper can tell the second she opens the door for him. 

“Oh, Peter,” she says, brushing grey-streaked hair out of her eyes. “You’re just in time. Tony and Morgan made waffles.”

“Dad!” 

“Hi bud,” he bends to pick Ben up as the two-year-old barrels towards him, hugging him close to his chest. “Did you have fun with Grandpa and Grandma?” 

“We made waffles!” he threw his hands up excitedly. 

“So I heard,” he threw himself down in the dining chair next to Tony, his forehead hitting the table with a hard  _ thunk _ and narrowly avoiding the plate of waffles they’d had waiting on the table for him. 

“Have a little too much fun with the decathlon team last night, bud?” Tony chuckled. “I didn’t know Ted had it in him.” 

Peter doesn’t even have the energy to roll his eyes. “Actually, MJ stopped by.” 

Tony and Morgan, whose seventeen-year-old Stark brain can’t help but be interested in a little bit of drama, freeze, their eyebrows disappearing into their hairlines. They look almost exactly alike, and if not for the headache jackhammering behind his eyes, he would have laughed. 

“MJ’s in town?” Morgan unlocked her phone and scrolled through her texts, frowning. She and Michelle kept in touch after she and Peter broke up. It didn’t bother him. He was glad his sister had that person that she could talk to about anything. Apparently, Michelle didn’t tell Morgan as much as Morgan told her. 

“Yeah, she flew in about two weeks ago,” Peter said. “Her dad’s sick, Morgs. I’m sure she just didn’t want to talk about it.” 

“Shit, is she ok?” 

“Language.” Tony admonished. 

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Ok, Cap.” 

Tony turned to Peter incredulously. “Can you believe the sass from this one?”

“Your spawn, your problem.” he laughed when Tony reached over and cuffed him on the back of the head. “Hey!”

“You’ll see,” Tony leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, a joint in his prosthetic popping. The three of them would have to go back into the lab and make repairs soon. “Mark my words, when Ben grows up, he’s gonna be a holy terror, aren’t you, bud?” He reached over and yanked his grandson into his lap. 

“No, Gwandpa, no!” he giggled as Tony tickled him. “I not, I not!” He jumped out of Tony’s lap and back into Peter’s the second he found an opening, tucking his head into his chest. Peter smirked at Tony over his son’s head. 

“You’re a little shit; you know that?” Morgan slapped a hand over her dad’s mouth, but it came too late. Ben looked between the three adults in confusion, a frown tugging down his eyebrows. 

“Shit?” 

Peter shook his head and bit down on his tongue to stop himself from laughing. “You see what you did?” he asked Tony. To Ben, he said. “We don’t say that buddy, that’s a bad word.” 

“Bad?” 

“Yep. Only Grandma’s allowed to use it.” 

“Speaking of Grandma,” Morgan stood from her chair and reached to pick Ben up. “We should go see if she needs help cleaning up.” 

“Yeah!”

Once they disappeared into the kitchen, Peter turned a heatless glare on Tony. “You’re a terrible influence.” 

“Says you. You haven’t even touched your waffles,” he shoved the offending plate closer to Peter. “It’s almost eleven am. Eat.”

Peter cut a chunk off his waffle with more force than necessary and shoved it in his mouth, staring straight at Tony as he chewed. It was delicious. 

“Better?” he asked. 

Tony grimaced. “Yes. Disgusting, but yes.” He sobered, and the look he fixed Peter with was worried and exasperated at the same time. Morgan called it his ‘Dad Face.’ 

“You want to talk about it?” 

What is it with people asking him to talk about stuff lately?

“Isn’t that what Sam’s for?” 

Sessions with Sam had become a regular occurrence since a game of hide and seek with Ben sent Peter spiraling into the worst panic attack he’s ever had. One second he could hear Ben giggling in the yard, and the next, he couldn’t, all the worst possible scenarios flashing through his mind in horrifying spurts. He didn’t even realize he had passed out until he woke up on the ground, Tony and a sobbing Ben looking down at him worriedly. 

“This job takes its toll on you.” Sam had said. “You do it for long enough, and everything you’ve been through, it makes your soul heavy. It’ll kill you if you let it.” They’d started to see each other less over the next couple of years, moving from once a week to once a month until the divorce. The anger and anxiety over trying to be a single dad and a CEO and Spiderman all at once were making him crazy. But he hadn’t done it by himself. Tony hired a lawyer and let Peter move back in until he found another place for him and Ben to live. He watched Ben during the day and ran errands when Peter didn’t have the energy to pull himself off the couch before he fell asleep. He doubted it was what Tony wanted to be doing with his retirement, but he didn’t know where he would be if he hadn’t. It wasn’t fair for him to try and push him away, not when the only person he was lying to was himself. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, yanking a hand through his hair. “I didn’t even know she was in town.” 

“Then how’d she end up at your house?”

“Someone told her about Gwen,” Peter said. “Betty must have given her my address.” 

“So, what happened?” 

“We talked, and we drank too much, and we-” 

“Ah,” Peter was glad he didn’t have to explain further. 

“She said-” he cut himself off. It wasn’t worth dwelling on because, at some point, she would have to go back to LA, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what she’d said all night. 

_ I never stopped loving you _

“She said what, Pete?” 

“She said she was still loved with me.” 

Tony didn’t look surprised. “Do you still love her?” 

Peter shoved his half-eaten waffle away to drop his head down on the table, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I don’t know, Tony I-” he sighed. “We broke up  _ eight years ago, _ and we’ve barely talked since then. So much has changed, and besides, she still has a life in LA. She’s going to have to go back eventually. We’ll be back where we started.” 

“You could ask her to stay.” Tony offered. 

“Yeah, cause that worked out so well the first time.” 

“No offense Pete, but you didn’t really try the first time.” 

Peter sat up and stared at him in disbelief. 

“You could have asked her to stay, but you were so afraid of losing her that you didn’t, and you lost her anyway.” Peter didn’t say anything, and Tony sighed. “I know it’s scary, but kid, you’ve been in love with this girl forever. If you have another chance at that, why wouldn’t you take it?”

“Because I don’t want to get rejected. Because Ben’s whole life got turned upside down, and the last thing he needs is for me to add someone else to the mix. Because if we try again and it doesn’t work out, I’ll lose her for good _. _ ”  __

Tony put a hand on his shoulder, stopping the tangent in its tracks. “My point is, you’re always going to come up with reasons why you can’t. And if you want to keep doing it that way, that’s fine. Or,” he shook him lightly. “You could have everything you’ve wanted since you were fifteen.” 

  
  


-

_ This is probably a mistake. _ Peter thought as he trudged up the steps of Michelle’s old house. No, this was definitely a mistake. This wasn’t going to work. Too much had happened since they last saw each other, and this wasn’t going to end well for either of them. Still, he forced himself up the steps, on foot in front of the other, and raised his fist to knock. There was a minute of silence, and it took all of Peter’s willpower not to turn around and sprint back to his car, but a second later, Michelle opened the door. 

She was dressed differently than she had been yesterday, foregoing the pantsuit in favor of jeans and a graphic t-shirt, and he was instantly taken back to high school. To the girl who used to sit in the back of the class with her face buried in a book and the awkward boy who approached her freshman year with his hands twisted in the sleeves of his sweatshirt. His stomach rolled, more from fondness than nerves, and he wished he’d done this years ago. 

“Hey,” Michelle said. She disappeared back into the house for a second, then came back out with slippers on her feet. “I’d invite you in, but my dad-” 

“It’s ok,” he said. “I get it.” 

They stared at each other awkwardly, and Peter mentally kicked himself. He had no idea what to say. 

“What are you doing here?” MJ asked. 

“You took off before we had a chance to talk this morning, so I was hoping-”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” she shook her head, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. “My mom called this morning, said we had to take my dad in. It’s not- It’s not good.” He pulled her into a hug, and to his surprise, she hugged him back, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. She wasn’t crying, but she buried her face into his collarbone, taking shaking breaths. It was a weird feeling, having her lean on him like this again. He’d nearly forgotten how much he missed it. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Pulling away from her felt like ripping his own skin off, but a moment later, she stepped back, looking at him expectantly. “What did you want to talk about?” 

He looked from her to the house and back. “Well, I don’t think now is a good time for-” 

“Just spit it out, Peter.” 

“Right, yeah, you’re right.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I was just wondering, um, what your plans for going back to LA were?” 

Her face fell almost imperceptibly, and Peter had another urge to kick himself. “I don’t know. With my dad and everything, I don’t want my mom to be by herself, and my nonprofit has a branch here they started last year, so I guess I could transfer, but-”

“Stay.” Peter interrupted. She froze, eyes wide. “Stay in New York. With me.” When she didn’t say anything, his stomach flipped. “I mean, if you’d rather go back to LA, that’s completely up to you, it’s not my decisions at all, and I don’t want you to think that you have t-” 

“Just shut up, Peter,” she leaned forward and kissed him, and for the first time in the last five minutes, his thoughts halted to a stop. 

They only pulled apart when they heard cheering from inside the house. 

“It about damn time.” Michelle’s mom stood by the window that looked out to the front of the house, a knowing look on her face. MJ ducked her head into Peter’s shoulder, and he couldn’t stop the grin splitting his face. 

  
“For the record,” he whispered in her ear. “I never stopped loving you either.” 

__

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don't know, Aviation Gin is the gin company Ryan Reynolds owns 
> 
> Stay happy and safe!


End file.
